


Hell A

by Trash



Series: Rhinestone [1]
Category: Linkin Park
Genre: Dancer Mike, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 18:11:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>L.A. isn't for Mike</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell A

Mike ditches class. Again. It’s not that he’s too smart for school or that he doesn’t like it. It’s that he’s restless, can’t sit still for too long. Moved to L.A from New York a year ago but never settled down. He still has itchy feet, dancer’s feet, muscle memory that won’t fade away. His body remembers dancing on street corners at night, busting moves for a buck in the park with his friends. But in L.A? It’s all about dance classes. Rehearsed choreography.

L.A? It isn’t for Mike.

He doesn’t miss New York. He knows that L.A is the place to be. When he was packing his things up and helping his mom load the car she reminded him calmly that California is going places, Michael. L.A is full of opportunities.

Mike’s pretty sure somebody has said that about every state in America at one time or another.

Their apartment building has a roof terrace and each apartment has a key to the roof door. That night, after his mother scolds him for skipping school for the umpteenth time that month and tells him to get out of her sight, he sneaks out of the apartment with the roof key burning a hole clean through his jeans pocket and into his leg.

He takes the stairs two at a time, his steps strangely light on the metal below him. Jamming the key in the lock he turns it, pushes the door open and steps out onto the roof. The cool night breeze soothes his nerves, rushes through his hair and rustles his over-sized shirt. He closes the door after him, closes his eyes and breathes in the L.A night.

Somewhere in the distance an alarm wails and sirens blare and, amid it all, Mike can hear a steady beat. Drum and bass pulsing through the night, carried up to the roof on the chilling wind. He paces across the roof top until the bass line gets louder and he can’t help bob his head in time to it.

He wasn’t too shaken up by moving from New York – never had been one for planting roots. After all, it’s not like he was born and bred on the East Coast. His mother took a year out from college to travel with her friends. She ended up in Japan and, like most, fell in love with the culture, the people. One person in particular. The young Japanese student invited her to dinner. And then...

Then they got married. And then once Mike was born she left. And the Japanese man didn’t follow her. Didn’t even care, or so Mike’s mother says. She never told him his dad’s name, and he never pressed.

She flew them both back to New York where she did her best to raise him and it’s not like she failed, Mike just couldn’t hold a job or keep his head down long enough to get anywhere. The way he dressed got him a reputation – baggy jeans and hooded sweaters automatically spelled trouble and Mike soon learned that, when everyone expects you to fail, it’s pretty hard to succeed.

His friends were mostly drug dealers, users, addicts. Despite that, they were good people and Mike got along well with them. They didn’t really have much in common until one day someone asked “Can you dance?”

And Mike said “Sure. Why not?”

Turned out he could. Well too. Nobody free-styled quite as well as Mike did. That’s what they said about him. Shinoda, they’d say, he can move.

Jump to Mike on the roof in L.A reminiscing of days gone by and his feet tapping in time to some distant beat that he thinks might just be in his head. Jump to him thinking that, through it all, one thing hasn’t changed – the music. He’s moving, the music flowing through him as he dances the way you only do when nobody is watching.

He drops to a crouch and then jumps, legs split and arms reaching up above his head. The surge of adrenalin through his body makes him forget about how he’s failing school and disappointing his mother and going nowhere fast.

With just the wind and a tune in his head up there on the roof top, Mike dances. And, for the first time in a while, he feels completely free.


End file.
